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Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Process as Adaptation

The snow day meant kids were home and loud, and I resorted to writing to music, headphones. I've plotted before to music -- the large sweeping stuff on a big sheet of paper -- but not written. I was in a very image-upon-image scene in a work of fiction that's dark and moody. It was transforming. Today, the house is quiet. I did it again for one section, but then hit heavy dialogue and had to turn it off. The music really disappears from my mind or, more accurately, it's absorbed into the subconscious. I'm about to teach a faculty seminar on creativity -- one point being to be aware of and open to changes and adaptations to your process. The creative process isn't static. It changes for each thing I'm at work on in little ways. What works in one instance, doesn't for another. Just yesterday, I said to Dave, "This might be an afternoon novel." It seems to resist the mornings -- brooding, brooding -- and then the characters start mouthing off.